Emergency help is completely different from the "pay 5 dollars every month to adopt some kid" charity groups that there are out there. I'm completely okay with emergency aid, it's a very different kind of aid than the kind that inhibits the production of capital goods.

Quote

Don't make excuses to not help people

Considering I laid out a solution to the problem that still helps people, this point is invalid.

Emergency help is completely different from the "pay 5 dollars every month to adopt some kid" charity groups that there are out there. I'm completely okay with emergency aid, it's a very different kind of aid than the kind that inhibits the production of capital goods.

Quote

Don't make excuses to not help people

Considering I laid out a solution to the problem that still helps people, this point is invalid.

there are different kinds of charities. one of the ones i like is where you pay to build a well in an area that doesn't have access to clean drinking water. the well could last decades or more. i agree that those 'adopt a kid' things aren't that great of a use of a money, but that's not the only option, there are a bunch of different kinds

generally improving infrastructure has a lasting long-term benefit, whereas just paying for food never ends since they'll still be hungry next year

generally improving infrastructure has a lasting long-term benefit, whereas just paying for food never ends since they'll still be hungry next year

Yes, definitely! Infrastructure can be considered a capital good that services the community, so it would be completely fine to donate that kind of thing.

I just rant about donating in general because you usually get donation agencies trying to legitimize themselves by publishing pie charts of where all the money goes, and it's usually all stuff like food, clothes, medicine, bed sheets, that kind of thing, where in all honesty donating that kind of stuff doesn't help people at all in the long run.

That's incredibly simplified though. Emergency help is always needed somewhere. And "Throwing money" at school building and well drilling projects does long term good.Foreign corporations basically stealing the local resources and destroying local markets is the real issue that needs to be solved. Along with achieving political stability which the former does nothing to help with.

Wherever something is provided for free that would otherwise be bought locally, local markets are destroyed. Nobody can compete with free.

Interference of foreign corporations certainly isn't desirable, but it's along the same lines as the kind of foreign 'charity' and 'aid' zalzane is talking about. Just another tendril of globalization. How do you intend to impose political stability on a foreign people?

Wherever something is provided for free that would otherwise be bought locally, local markets are destroyed. Nobody can compete with free.

i'm not sure this is always the case, particularly if it's given only to those who can't otherwise afford it.

as an example, in the US, food stamps did not "destroy" the market for food. neither did medicare and medicaid destroy the market for health insurance. people still buy food and health insurance despite food and health insurance being given away for free to the poorest people.

not saying that food stamps and medicare/medicaid are good things, of course, or that they had zero impact on the market. just that they didn't "destroy" those markets.

The point is remote economies of scale often flatten smaller local economies in competition, with devastating consequences for the agency and dignity of locals. There are certainly ways remote intervention can help people without such intolerable fallout, but it does imply you have to be very careful with the kind of charity you support (and that gov't food aid is kaput).

Welp! The scenario zalzane described doesn't actually occur very much and that was my problem. Bill Gates, USAID, or nearly any non-profit would refuse to just give money or free things to people anymore. It's all money for projects or loans (microfinance, like giving a farmer money for tools, has become incredibly widespread over the last 20 years).

Problems with a Cold War term like "third world" aside, corruption and graft are not a reason to not donate money to aid organizations in an emergency or on an ongoing basis. It's just a reason to target your money better and I'm glad that was said by a few posters.

Ending poverty has a lot more to it than just developing nations, because, erm... there's a fuckload of poor people in developed nations too. It's just that we have more substantial safety nets (food stamps, community action agencies, unemployment insurance, etc.) than other, less well-to-do nations.

The point of my complaint was that the OP's survey didn't say location, class, or race--actually let's just leave race out of it-- but I'm guessing those would be similarly homogeneous. These are significant factors when you open your mouth in a public forum, even if they weren't included.

Welp! The scenario zalzane described doesn't actually occur very much and that was my problem. Bill Gates, USAID, or nearly any non-profit would refuse to just give money or free things to people anymore. It's all money for projects or loans (microfinance, like giving a farmer money for tools, has become incredibly widespread over the last 20 years).

Problems with a Cold War term like "third world" aside, corruption and graft are not a reason to not donate money to aid organizations in an emergency or on an ongoing basis. It's just a reason to target your money better and I'm glad that was said by a few posters.

Ah, that's good to hear. I thought microfinance became widespread much more recently than that.

It's just hard to believe things are hunky-dory when you see tons of ads for bullshit like Christian Children's Fund on the boob tube (nothing against Christian generosity, it's a bad charity, at least as they present it in the ads), and read of shenanigans like this all the time. A few years ago my local newspaper had a scathing investigative piece on charities based nearby whose bigwigs were paying themselves handsomely.

Charities are immediately dubious because they claim to help people. Yet at worst, you entrust money to a middleman who pockets it or wastes it, with neither provider nor middleman considering the supposed recipient of the charity. You can contrast this with for-profit corporations, which legitimately claim to provide good products and services in exchange for money, despite their methods being unethical (or amoral) most of the time. You can trust a corporation to do whatever it takes to make a buck. With charities it's up in the air. There's nothing systematically optimizing charities to do what they're meant to. Some do, some don't. Nothing forces under ones that don't.

How do you make average Joes and Janes cautious about what they give to without putting them off donating altogether? You gotta have some kind of contingency as our society slides from high- to low-trust.

Ending poverty has a lot more to it than just developing nations, because, erm... there's a fuckload of poor people in developed nations too. It's just that we have more substantial safety nets (food stamps, community action agencies, unemployment insurance, etc.) than other, less well-to-do nations.

True. However, most safety nets in developed countries reduce people to strictly economic terms, so lie somewhere between inadequate and nefarious.